


Triptych on the Death of Ser Rylock

by Ember_Keelty



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9895418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/pseuds/Ember_Keelty
Summary: Three worlds where the Warden Commander helped Anders kill his pursuers, and three possible waypoints on the road to radicalization.





	

I. Aeducan

The Templars reach for their weapons, and the Commander swings her maul without a second's hesitation. The one with the helmet takes the first hit, and the silverite breastplate crumples like so much parchment, along with his chest beneath it. The Commander's own momentum sends her pivoting, exposing her back to Rylock, who raises her mace.

She hasn't silenced Anders, though. With the Commander standing between them, she hasn't had the chance.

At this point, casting frost magic at _anything_ attacking Anders' fellow Wardens has become a reflex for him. The deeper instinct that was drilled into him at the age of twelve and has kept him alive since —  _never lash out against Templars, ever —_ doesn't catch up with him until Rylock stands paralyzed and brittle with the chill he's sunk into her armor and flesh.

When the Commander's maul connects with her, she shatters, showering the dwarf with viscera. That was a neat little party trick when the two of them practiced it on darkspawn, but seeing it happen to a person — even a person like Ser Rylock — makes Anders cringe.

Then the Commander shoulders her weapon and turns to him, a casual smile on her blood-spattered face, and Anders finds it in him to swallow the bile that's risen into his throat and smile back. "Thank you," he says. "You stood by me, and I appreciate that."

"Why would I ever have done anything else?" the Commander asks. "That's the easiest battle I've fought in ages. Poor blighters were suicidal."

"They're Templars," Anders tries to explain. Then, tripping giddily over his own explanation, he corrects himself: " _Were_ Templars. They have the whole might of the Chantry at their backs."

"Ah, yes. The mighty Chantry. All those crotchety grandmothers and their god who's done nothing but sulk for a thousand years." Her smile widens into a grin. "You know, when we first met at Vigil's Keep, it took me a minute to understand what you were insisting you hadn't done. Before you drew my attention to the human bodies, I'd assumed they were hurlocks that had scrounged up some decent armor."

"So I should learn to keep my mouth shut. What a stunning new revelation!"

"This one would have informed me of it anyway," the Commander says, prodding Rylock's fragmented remains with her boot. "Also: I don't care. Which is the point I am trying to make by mentioning this."

That makes sense enough. The rumors Anders has heard about the Hero of Ferelden say she was once a sort of princess of Orzammar — a real Deep Roads denizen, blissfully ignorant to all things Andrastian. And now she's a paragon, a living god. There's a lovely bit of irony in someone else's god appearing to smite the Templars.

He knows it's all rubbish, of course. Sulking or none, the Maker is the only entity in existence with any _rightful_ claim to divinity. Still, it's encouraging to think there are people out there who don't take everything the Chantry says about Him for granted, people who can look at a Templar and see not the hand of His wrath but a soldier as mortal as any other.

"Oh, so you're _above it all_ ," Anders says to the dwarf, for once feeling nearly as cheerful as he tries to make himself sound. His phylactery is still out there, and he was unfortunately correct about the Templars' willingness to defy the right of conscription, but the Commander obligingly groans and rolls her eyes at his terrible joke as she tracks blood across the warehouse floor, like defying them right back is the most natural thing in the world.

 

II. Tabris

Tabris tries to reason with the Templars. "It was the darkspawn that killed your men, not Anders. Trust me, I can tell the difference." And: "You cannot deprive the Wardens of a healer to close the wounds we take standing between you and the Blight." It's sweet of her, but Anders knows she'll have to back down eventually. He's always been good at making friends, and Tabris is hardly the first person to put up a fuss on his behalf. Even Bann Ferrenly relented when they reminded him what could happen to his family if he died a traitor.

"Then I will bring you another healer," says Rylock — and _that's_ something new, a Templar all but bargaining. "You don't want this one as much as you think you do. In time, he will prove as much of an embarrassment to the Wardens as he has been to us."

"No," Tabris says, too quickly to have even considered it. "We're done here. Come on, Anders."

She turns to walk away, and Anders almost shouts at her, _Don't show your back!_ But before he can find his voice, the Templars draw their weapons—

And Tabris has her dagger through the visor of the one with the helmet. Maybe she was watching from the corner of her eye, maybe she was listening for the telltale scrape of metal, but sweet Andraste, she is _fast_. She makes Rylock look downright clumsy as she circles her, dodges the blows of her mace, and in mere seconds finds an opening to lop the hand swinging it clean off.

Rylock screams and crumples, and Tabris catches her. Standing behind the mutilated Templar, holding her up with her sword arm around her waist and her dagger to her throat, Tabris catches Anders' eyes and calls out his name like an order.

"Tabris?" Anders finds himself struggling to understand what just happened, let alone what's supposed to happen now. Does Tabris want him to run? To heal Rylock? What would either of those accomplish?

"This is yours," Tabris tells him. "Take it." Rylock's face is draining of its color, her head lolling to one side, but her eyes flick up at him, and Anders sees they are full of fear — not wariness, not suspicion, but actual _fear_. It's strange: people always talk about him like they think he's going to go off and murder someone someday, but this is the first time he's gotten the sense that anyone actually believes it.

It's enough to make him believe it, too. Quickly, before he can think better of it, he draws his staff and casts a spear of ice strong enough to pierce clean through Rylock's armor to her heart.

Tabris lets the body clatter to the floor, then spits on it. Anders, lightheaded, heart racing, mana surging in from the Fade to replenish all that he just spent on a single attack, chokes out a surprised laugh. "Since when do _you_ have such strong feelings about Templars?" he asks her.

"I don't, in general," Tabris says. "But these? These were _scum_. Could've been out hunting maleficars—" _Maleficarum_ , Anders restrains himself from correcting her, his gratitude overwhelming his pedantry. "—but no _._ Far more important to punish the bloody healer serving the bloody Grey Wardens in the aftermath of the bloody Blight — for _embarrassing_ them. Some people get ahold of power and all they care to do with it is put everyone beneath them in their place. I know the type too well."

 _Most Templars_ are _the type,_ Anders wants to tell her. _The ones who aren't either learn to go along with it or lose their jobs._ If only the tower walls didn't obscure that, maybe the Hero of Ferelden would care. Maybe the _people_ of Ferelden would care. Maybe—

Maybe he'll get a harem and a banquet and a rain of fireballs, yeah? Maybe he'll get a bloody pony. Anders knows better than to thank the person who just saved his life by whining at her.

Tabris strides over to him and clasps him by the shoulders, though she has to reach up almost above her own head to do so. "They can't get away with it, and now you know you have it in you to stop them. Since apparently you really didn't kill those other ones, judging by your reaction just now."

"What? Of course not! Did you think I was lying this whole time?" Not that he isn't used to being disbelieved, but didn't she just say that she could tell it was the darkspawn?

"I thought you might be, and I wouldn't have blamed you if you were. I've done my fair share of lying and killing both." It sounds like a joke, but her expression is somber and earnest. "Anders, listen to me. If someone tries to drag you away from your oath when I'm not here to chase them off, you can't hesitate. Just kill them. That's an order. Even if you're overwhelmed, even if it seems hopeless, you stand and you fight and you make them _buy_ it."

"I— thank you." _Not the right way to respond to an order_ , he thinks, and quickly amends, "Yes, Commander Tabris. Understood." If she's going to pretend this isn't a gift to him, he might as well play along.

"Good. If you weren't past the point of no return before, you certainly are now. How does _that_ feel?"

"When you put it like that? Terrifying."

Tabris smiles with something like pride and pats his shoulders. "That's freedom."

 

III. Surana

"Anders stays with me," Neria tells the Templars.

"Hardly surprising from yet another mage," says Rylock. The corners of her mouth twitch upward, and there's a note of triumph in her voice, like she was _hoping_ for the Hero of Ferelden to fall, to confirm to her and all of Thedas that the only safe mage is a dead one. It's there for just a second before she forces her expression back into a scowl, but Anders sees it.

Neria sees it too, he knows, because when he looks to her, her face is a mask of shock. For the first time since they found each other at Vigil's Keep, Anders has no difficulty reconciling the dashing Warden Commander with the girl he remembers from before his sixth escape. The last time he was both in Kinloch Hold and in any condition to work with apprentices, Neria had been little more than a child.

She reaches for her staff, and Anders does the same, but neither of them are fast enough. The Templars don't need to draw their weapons to put down two mages. They just lift their hands, and Anders feels the smites rip through him from both sides, shredding the magic at the core of his being and leaving only a desperate, hollow ache. It knocks him off his feet, and all he can do is fold to his knees to keep from falling flat and cracking his head. Then the helmeted Templar kicks him in the teeth and sends him toppling over anyway.

Neria somehow withstands the blows, but the Templars weather the one spell she manages to get off before the heavy chill of a silence hits them both. She tries to fight anyway, wielding her staff as a melee weapon. When she brings it up to block Rylock's mace, the heavier weapon breaks it clean in half and lays her out on her back.

"Chain him," Rylock says, turning away from Neria. At first Anders wonders why she'd risk that, but when the Templars clap the shackles around his wrists and drag him to his feet, he sees the dent in the Commander's chest and the blood spilling between her fingers as she tries to hold it closed. Raw creation magic couldn't do much for that, even if the silence weren't still smothering her mana, and Rylock knows it.

"You can't kill her," Anders blurts out. "You _can't_! They'll have your heads! She's a Warden! She's _the_ Warden! She's—"

 _Yet another mage_ , Rylock called her. That's all any of them will ever be, isn't it?

"I'd be more worried about myself, if I were you," Rylock says, but Anders already knows what's going to happen to him. He knew when he chose to run for the seventh and last time. If he's lucky, they'll hang him. If he isn't, they'll lock him back in the dark and leave him to die.

He realizes the silence is fading when his hands start to burn with panic. The fire itself can't hurt him, but it _can_ heat the metal around his wrists enough to sear off his skin. He should probably get himself under control before that happens. He'd be better off sparing himself what pain he can.

Instead, he jerks forward and presses his hands against Rylock's face, tangles his fingers in her hair, and listens to her scream.

It lasts less than a second before she shoves him away, but that will have to be enough. "You'll need healing!" he says quickly, before she can even swat out the flames, before her subordinate can run him through. "I can fix it so it doesn't scar, just let me help Neria first!"

 _Please let it not be too late for that_. Anders risks taking his eyes off Rylock to look, and sees Neria, wrapped in the soft green glow of her own creation magic, forcing herself up onto her hands and knees. She shouldn't be pushing herself like that, but before Anders can tell her as much, a silverite gauntlet strikes him across the face and his vision momentarily blacks out.

"You think you are so very _clever_ , don't you, Anders?" Rylock growls at him. She hits him again, hard enough to knock him down, but the other Templar catches him and holds him up within reach of the next blow. "We both know how much leniency your talent as a healer has bought you up to now. But you've overplayed your hand this time." There's blood on his face and in his mouth. He _could_ close the cuts that it's coming from, even with his hands chained, but if Rylock means to beat him to death right here, healing himself will just make it last longer. "Whatever it costs me, I will not allow you to get away with—"

" _Shit!_ " the helmeted Templar shouts, and drops Anders to the ground in a crumpled heap. "The elf! She's—!"

Anders manages to look up just in time to see, of all things, an enormous _bear_ smash open Rylock's head with a single swipe of its paw.

"Abomination!" the remaining Templar cries out. In spite of everything, Anders almost laughs, because oh, _Templars_. Neria, apparently, is a shapeshifter. She has turned into a big, fuzzy bear. It is _clearly_ a bear, mundane in every way except for how it came to be standing in the middle of a warehouse. But, sure: abomination. Isn't everything?

With his full armor on, this one takes Neria a little bit longer to dispatch than Rylock did — but only a _very_ little bit. Once he's been thoroughly mauled, the bear vanishes in a flash and is replaced by a wide-eyed elf. Her wound looks less imminently lethal than it did a minute ago, whether that's a side effect of the shift or because she's better at healing than Anders realized. There's clearly a lot he doesn't know about her, so either is possible.

He has so many questions for her, more than he can keep straight in his throbbing head. Somehow, the one that comes out of his mouth is, "Could you be a tiger, too?"

"I can't believe I just did that," Neria says, and lets out a ragged laugh. She kneels down beside Anders and sends a soothing pulse of creation magic through his head before helping him sit up, then carefully works frost magic into the shackles binding him until the metal is brittle enough to break. He repays her by closing what's left of the hole in her chest.

"Could _I_ be a tiger?" Anders tries again, once neither of them are too busy to chatter absurdly.

"I just murdered two Templars," Neria says breathlessly, grinning like a death's head.

"I'm sorry, aren't you the Hero of Ferelden? Didn't you slay the bloody archdemon?"

"You're _supposed_ to slay the archdemon! Though, actually, I did that a bit wrong, too."

Anders decides he doesn't want to know, so he focuses instead on healing himself to the point that he feels up to standing. When he's ready, Neria stands with him — and nearly knocks him right back over again when she suddenly hugs him.

"Thank you," she says. "We're never going back. Never, never, never. This is almost better than smashing our phylacteries."

Anders has no idea what to say to that. She's thanking him for almost getting her killed. She's thanking him for reminding her that even now there are people who _want_ to kill her, who hate her for _getting away with_ being a legendary hero who sacrificed much of her lifespan to save the world.

Then she adds, "We're in this together," and suddenly, it all makes a little _too_ much sense.

"Yes, well. Tigers?" Anders prompts her one more time, eager to reroute this conversation into less perilous territory. Maker knows dabbling in forbidden magic is safer than getting caught up in solidarity.

"I've never even seen one, outside of a beastiary," Neria admits with a laugh. "Working off an illustration would not end well."

"Ah. Pity."

"We could try a wildcat, if you wanted."

"Hm! I'll take it!"


End file.
